David Sandeman explains live on LBC Radio about the recent Stamp Duty changes

10 May 2016

David, a number of people have been asking me about this stamp duty change for buy to let homes which has now come in. Can you just explain what that’s about, how it works?

Yes, basically where you were buying a second home for any purpose even if you were just buying a home for yourself to live in but you haven’t sold your existing one you will pay a 3% surcharge of the value of the property on top of pre-existing stamp duty rates and if it’s a second property for renting out that’s completely gone and it’s just an increase in the stamp duty. If you were buying a home and bridging and selling your existing home, on buying a new home you’d pay the additional 3% on that and when you’ve sold the one you were living in you could claim for a rebate from the revenue.

So it’s like a transition, if you were buying somewhere but eventually selling where you were before then that would be ok?

Yes, but it’s not just to rent, it’s if you bought a holiday home in cornwall or something you would pay the additional stamp duty on that as well.

What’s your feeling about it? – do you think anyone is being put off becoming a landlord or buy to let investor because of the stamp duty, do you see any sign of that?

My experience is when these things come in there is a temporary resistance to it but we are just going to have to accept it and price it into our budget.

Going back to auctions, if people want more information about 'How to do it at Auction' - What do you recommend?

If they want to see what is coming up for sale in their area and what properties have sold for at auction come to our website www.eigpropertyauctions.co.uk Or put 'EIG auctions' into a search engine you’ll be able to come to our site, register to have access to our website and see all the information you’ll need.

Great well David, thank you very much indeed for joining us from the Essential Information Group.